The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I: 1

Superb biography. Well-detailed. Fascinating look at a man who was a real piece of excrement his entire life, but was able to get things done.

いい本です、値段も安い。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

ケネディ大統領の後を襲ったリンドン・ジョンソン大統領の伝記の第一部です。著者のロバート・キャロは、主人公の生後から上院選の最初の挑戦までを実に丹念に追っています。ジョンソンの権力への執着心は幼少の頃から一貫して堅持されており、生い立ちとともに強まっていくその力には、時に呆れ、時に唸らされました。トップまで上り詰める人間というのはここまで徹底した執念を持っていなければならないのか、と自問させられます。読者の大抵は、「俺はここまでできないよ」という思いを持ちながら読み進めるのではないでしょうか。だからこそ本書は惹きこみます。四部作の第一作目で、二作目も読みたくなっています。ハーバード･ビジネス･レビュー誌2006年9月号にキャロ氏のインタビュー記事が載っており、面白そうだなと思い購入しました。期待を裏切らない内容です。

This is a very good biography, with an amazing amount of research and detail integrated into the story of Lyndon Johnson up to his second run for the Senate in 1948. I particularly appreciated the description of the difficult, draining life for farmers in the Texas Hill Country. Of particular strength, for me, was the lengthy description of the hardships women (including Johnson's intellectual mother) faced in raising families and keeping the home without any running water or electricity. Beyond the lack of electric light, gas stoves, washing machines and dryers--conveniences that we all take so for granted now--even ironing clothes was arduous, not to mention lugging the gallons of water from the well to the house in order to take a weekly shower or wash clothing and dishes. Everyone living in America today should read those chapters because it is a great reminder that as overwhelmed as we can be by housework today, rural families in the years before Franklin Roosevelt had it much, much worse.What impressed me most about this biography was Caro's ability to organize so much information, so much research and details about so many people into clear sentences, paragraphs and chapters. It is almost overwhelming to read it all and impossible to imagine it wasn't overwhelming to contemplate organizing it all into clear, readable prose. But Caro did, and there are even many times when his sentences go beyond "competent and informative" to sparkling and even brilliant prose.He makes a compelling case for a Lyndon Johnson who is far from the fatherly figure he tried to achieve in his Oval Office addresses as the president who started--and stubbornly presided over--the Vietnam War. The child of a charismatic, idealistic father who descended from social status as a Texas legislator to a dirt-poor,failed cotton farmer, Caro's Johnson is convincing as an insecure boy who used every bit of intelligence, magnetism and personality in the service of his one goal: "to be somebody", in particular, to achieve the highest recognition from the public as President of the United States.On this path to the White House, Caro introduces us to the Lyndon Johnson who had tremendous talent for making people like him (I would never have guessed, for example what a natural teacher he was--and a motivator among teachers as well, even when he was only in his teens. Caro left no doubt for me that he could have excelled in the classroom and easily reached the top administrative positions in education, if he had wished to have that career.)But instead his single-minded ambition required political power--his own and others'--and it also required lots and lots of other people's money. Caro shows the hard work Johnson brought to any task he took on--campaigning for Texas congressmen and showing "political genius" in the process while only in his teens, becoming one of the most effective legislative assistants in congress, developing all of his political skills as a congressman and finally reaching the pinnacle of his career as a wheeling and dealing senator, doling out punishments and rewards--the latter, whether in committee appointments or cold, hard cash, since eventually he had access to millions thanks to his favors done for oil and construction interests from Halliburton (Brown & Root) to the oil men who knew that, Democrat or not, Johnson was their man in Congress. They paid him back generously for his favors.This volume does not go as far as his successful run for the senate. Those 7 years are covered in "The Means of Assent" followed by "Master of the Senate", and "The Passage to Power", about his years as vice president. Caro's fifth volume (and it is hard to imagine there won't be a sixth needed to cover this period, 1963-1973) is still being written. The arc from Johnson's life in the Texas hills as a poor boy to the reviled multi-millionaire president who presided over the Vietnam War that killed over 58,000 Americans and over 2 million Vietnamese is an fascinating, if often dispiriting, story of megalomania and greed. To his credit, Caro does not skimp on the positive attributes Johnson had, but they fail to balance out the tragedy for the nation in the way that he used them.I admire this book and certainly learned a lot from it, particularly about the workings of Washington poiticians from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. But when the admiration began to fade amid the wealth of minute political detail, I felt a little disappointed, almost cheated. Caro is so fixated on the political life of Lyndon Johnson--so much on the personalities in Washington at the time--that the "big picture" of life in the United States during the years of the 1920s through the 40's is often missing. He touched on Coolidge and Hoover's attitude toward the poor, but I would have liked to know more about the economic forces behind the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and more about the effects of the Depression. He mentions the opposition to labor unions in Congress--and the support for them by other politicians--but the labor movement itself gets little attention. Similarly, this is the period when World War began in Europe and also, two years later, when it began for the United States. Again, I wished for more of a "big picture" more global events, more social history, more economic forces. There is too much for me at any rate) of the battle between Roosevelt and John Garner (his VP). It goes on and on and on and that's true of so many things here, including Johnson's relationship with oil man and publisher Charles Marsh (and his affair with Marsh's mistress), his relationship with the Brown brothers (very important, but you know these are not the only wealthy patrons he has--where are the oil men who Johnson told Bobby Baker he was "working for" when he reached the Senate?)The machinations of Johnson in purchasing a struggling radio station then and using his position to get special favor from the FCC is important because it shows a pattern of turning political power to personal financial advantage. But Caro sometimes belabors the point to an exhausting degree. If I want to know in detailed chapters about something from the 1940s, I would rather it is about the economics of the New Deal and how it was changing America, or how the U.S. was changing in response to the rise of fascism in Europe, instead of about the bitter feud between FDR and Garner, and how it involved Texan Sam Rayburn . I think these nearly 1000 pages could have included more of the "big picture", and instead painted much political minutiae with broader strokes in many cases (and also kept the focus more on Johnson--often Caro goes for pages with no mention at all of Johnson) AND could have cut many of the unremarkable details along the way to do it, and still been 200 pages shorter. Not to say it isn't a valuable biography of Johnson, but I wanted to make it clear why such a monumental work isn't getting the highest rating possible, despite being so well researched and well written.Also, for those who want to learn more about what Lyndon Johnson was like from two men who worked for him, I recommend press secretary George Reedy's highly readable, "\\\ Lyndon B. Johnson: A MemoirLyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir

I recently completed "The Path to Power," the first volume of Robert A. Caro's multi-volume biography about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the thirty-sixth President of the United States. Here is a magnificently written, highly detailed, and ultimately scathing portrait of the early life of the man who brought us the "Great Society," the "War on Poverty," and the Civil Rights Act of 1964... as well as the "Credibility Gap" and the War in Vietnam.Robert A. Caro's majestic Johnsonian triptych "The Years of Lyndon Johnson." is currently made up of "The Path to Power," which covers LBJ's life from his birth in 1908 until his first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941; "Means of Ascent," a chronicle of Johnson's years from 1941 to his second (and ultimately successful) Senate run in 1948; and "Master of the Senate," the critically acclaimed narrative of LBJ's 12-year career in the Senate (1948-1960). These three volumes are among the most critically acclaimed and highly honored biographies of all time. They've won three National Book Awards (one for each volume); a Francis Parkman Prize for best work of history (Volume 3); and a Pulitzer Prize for biography (also Volume 3.)As I've already stated, "The Path to Power" covers Johnson's early life, from his birth in 1908 to an impoverished Texas Hill Country politician and his dreamy wife; through his upbringing, college education, early political career, and early years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a "complete Roosevelt man;" to his unsuccessful first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941.Of the many premises in the first volume of Caro's triptych, two stand out as paramount: First, according to Caro, is that LBJ secretly harbors a burning ambition to become President of the United States, a craving for political power that apparently manifests itself in his teens, and from which he never wavers until he attains that high office. Caro's second premise is that LBJ is the antithesis of his highly principled, idealistic father, Sam Ealy Johnson. The elder Johnson is a superb politician, but also incapable of bringing prosperity to his family. As young Lyndon watches his father fail at nearly everything he does, he concludes that his father's high principles, tenacious dedication to the truth, and Populist idealism, lead to nothing but failure. Better to lie, say anything at all, in fact, to get what you want, if that's what it takes to be successful.As a young adult, LBJ is thoroughly inculcated with those personality traits he thinks essential for success: a loud, vulgar, and abrasive manner; a calculating deceitfulness so pronounced he is derisively called "Bull" Johnson to his face by his peers; and a well developed ability to sycophantically curry favor from anyone he deems useful.After college, it isn't long before opportunity knocks on LBJ's door, in the form of a job as secretary to the newly elected Representative from Johnson's Congressional district. He turns the novice congressman's office into a model of efficiency, all the while displaying a mammoth capacity for hard work. After a few years as the congressman's secretary, LBJ is appointed head of the National Youth Administration (NYA), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (FDR) New Deal bureaucracies. Johnson is the youngest of 48 state directors, and by all accounts, the most successful. His zeal, hard work, and efficiency deeply impress FDR. He soon becomes a favorite at the White House.In 1937, Congressman James Buchanan of Texas' Tenth District, dies. He is a very senior and influential congressman who has the backing of several Texas contractors, including Herman and George Brown. At his death, Buchanan leaves a host of political and patronage "loose ends," including contracts for a new dam that's coveted by the Brown brothers. The Browns are convinced that LBJ is the man who can get the Federal government to award them the dam contracts. They convince him to run for Buchanan;s vacated seat, and they provide most of his financial backing. After a closely contested special election, in which LBJ once again demonstrates his now legendary capacity for hard work, he is improbably elected to the House over nine other candidates. He will remain a Congressman for eleven years.In 1934, Johnson meets Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor, and, after a whirlwind courtship, marries her. From the very beginning, LBJ proves himself a despicable, almost abusive spouse. He peremptorily orders Lady Bird around in public. He cheats on her with a succession of women. He ignores her at parties. Yet, this painfully shy, plain, woman remains staunchly loving and loyal to her man.Caro's portrait of LBJ the Congressman is decidedly negative. LBJ does much work on his constituents' behalf at first - bringing major construction projects to his district (almost all of them going to the Brown brothers and electric power to the Texas hill country. But he rarely, if ever, writes or sponsors legislation or makes speeches in the House. Still, he remains very popular among a grateful constituency.In 1941, after four years in the House of Representatives, LBJ takes another step along the path to ultimate power: he decides to run in the special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the recently deceased Morris Sheppard. Johnson is barely known outside his own Congressional district. In the end, it comes down to a three-man race. LBJ loses by just over 1,300 votes in an election that is almost assuredly stolen from him. It's a lesson that LBJ will remember for the future...Robert Caro, a journalist who is a virtuoso of research, and a master craftsman with the old typewriter he uses when writing, has painted a portrait of young Lyndon Baines Johnson that is rich, textured, filled with intricate detail, and scathing in its judgments. The pace of the tightly woven narrative never once flags. The prose is elegant, slightly ironic in tone, and written with an historian's eye for detail and a journalist's flair for the dramatic. I found the book so entertaining that it was nearly impossible to put down... the kind of book I found myself thinking about when I wasn't reading it, and anxiously awaiting the time when I could get back to it.Now... on to the next volume of "The Years of Lyndon Johnson."